Cineuropa Shorts Top Five Shorts of 2016 Part 2 - Press, Filmmakers and Industry

Read the introduction to the Cineuropa Top Five European Shorts of 2016 HERE and Part 1 HERE

(Reminder: participants were allowed to choose 5 films from Europe and 1 from outside of Europe. Also please note that the following are individual choices and not necessarily of the organisations said individuals represent)

Alexei Dmitriev (Hobby Filmmaker, Russia)Import (Ena Sendijarević, 2016, The Netherlands)Tired of all the mediocre refugee films flooding the world these days? Watch ‘Import’ and thank me later.Green Screen Gringo (Douwe Dijkstra, 2016, Netherlands-Brazil)The director (and his faithful green screen) goes to Brazil and gets political (and poetical).489 Years (Hayoun Kwon, 2016, France)Surely there is a place for an animated documentary this year. The choice was between I Was a Winner by Jonas Odell and 489 Years. The later won due to not being an inventor of the genre.Flowers and Bottoms (Christos Massalas, 2016, Greece)It’s hard to describe this film (I usually call it an ‘essay film’). But who doesn't like bottoms? Or flowers? If there were cats — it would be a masterpiece.Among The Black Waves (Anna Budanova, 2016, Russia)Even tough 2016 was a good year for animation, it still brought me home. Different (and more abstract) than the director’s previous work which made it even more gorgeous.

Neil Young (freelance reviewer/journalist/programmer; The Hollywood Reporter, Sight & Sound, Viennale) We'll Go To Neuilly, Inshallah [On ira à Neuilly inch'allah] (Mehdi Ahoudig & Anna Salzberg, 2015, France)"I wanted to put a spoke in the wheels of such a shitty corporation as JCDecaux, that publicly boast of putting prisoners to work. In the night of May 7th, I slashed the tires of 80 Vélib’ bikes as well as of three vans and a truck of the municipality of Paris. This small attack was easy and pleasant. Fuck the JCDecaux and every municipal authority." [anon, 2014]Isabella Morra (Isabel Pagliai, 2015, France)"These children are mini-adults, they have strength because of their relation to their environment, something bigger than themselves. There's a tragic destiny at work here, a loneliness. What will they become? They carry a true poetry, strength, a liberty that may be threatened by society. Isabella had a poetic force that others were jealous of—her mother and brothers. We find something similar with these children, who have this vital and poetic force that the world might try to extinguish." [Isabel Pagliai] Autumn [Herbst] (Meinhard Rauchensteiner, 2016, Austria)2016 yielded some decent about poetry: Terence Davies' biopic A Quiet Passion, Jian Fan's documentary Still Tomorrow. Paterson also came out, unfortunately. Rauchensteiner's three-minute Rilke-homage trumps the bunch, however, and is pound-for-pound, line-for-line second-for-second, one of the funniest films ever made.The French Road [aka The French Road, Detroit MI] (Arthur Summereder, 2016, Austria)Meek Austrian experimentalist tackles the mean streets of Motor City after dark, and fills the chasmous gap between Furious 7 (2015) and The Fate of the Furious (2017) with rubber-burning aplomb.No'i (Aline Magrez, 2016, Belgium/Vietnam)Brother,how is Hang Dao now?How is Ngoc Son temple?Do the trains still runeach day from Hanoito the neighboring towns?['Thoughts of Hanoi', by Nguyen Thi Vinh]Mercury (Lewis Klahr, 2015, USA)The best comic-book adaptation since A History Of Violence.

Wouter Jansen (owner Some Shorts / Head of competitions at Go Short - International Short Film Festival Nijmegen)2016 has been a great year for short film in my opinion, as it has been a long time since I have seen so many films that really blew me away when watching them on the big screen (and I’m happy that I saw so many in the cinema!). The list I compiled is full of films which touched me greatly when first seeing them. For instance Ten Meter Tower that had me laughing mostly throughout the film when I finally saw it at IndieLisboa, or A Man Returned that left me speechless as the conclusion of one of the shorts programs I saw in Rotterdam. The other three choices all managed to capture the spirit of people in a certain small moment perfectly and comment on bigger issues at the same time. I also included A Woman and Her Car in this list because I have no idea why this film wasn’t in all festival lineups last year, so good!Import (Ena Sendijarevic, 2016, the Netherlands)Dreaming of Baltimore [Au loin, Baltimore] (Lola Quivoron, 2016, France)Ten Meter Tower [Hopptornet] (Maximilien Van Aertryck & Axel Danielson, 2016, Sweden)A Man Returned (Mahdi Fleifel, 2016, Denmark, United Kingdom, the Netherlands)La Disco Resplandece (Chema García Ibarra, 2016, Spain / Turkey)A Woman and Her Car [Elle Pis Son Char] (Loïc Darses, 2015, Canada)

Laurence Boyce (Editor Cineuropa Shorts / Head of Programmme International Short Film Festival Sleepwalkers)Home (Daniel Mulloy, 2016, Kosovo, UK)I have already reviewed Daniel Mulloy’s brilliant film HERE. Suffice to say it’s a brilliant achievement in shifting perceptions and shattering clichés. It’s an urgent but empathetic piece of work and a reminder of the brilliance that can be achieved by the short formTimecode (Juanjo Giménez, 2016, Spain)While many of the films from 2016 have dealt with immigration, displacement and war, the Palme D’or winning short of 2016 goes down a more gentle route. Yet the clever love story is still a very timely exploration of alienation and the possibility of freedom amongst oppression. I talk more about the film HEREColombi (Luca Ferri, 2016, Italy) A brilliantly observed examination of the changing world. A humorous exploration of a couple’s years together weaves together with an air of melancholy to create a moving piece that is exquisitely realised9 Days - From My Window In Aleppo (Thomas Vroege, Floor Van Der Meulen & Issa Touma , 2015, Syria / NetherlandsUrgent, raw and vital filmmaking. It’s won numerous awards in 2016 and deservedly so. A testament to the power of short filmmaking as well as a damning indictment on the worldWritten / Unwritten [Scris / Nescris] (Adrian Silisteanu, 2016, Romania)Romania does it again with another amazingly affecting story of human frailty that still manages to offer something of a glimmer of hope. It’ll be interesting to see if the film gets more traction in 2017Greener Grass (Paul Briganti, 2016, USA)The dark heart of suburbia revealed in a lovely surreal piece of work. Shades of David Lynch and Jennifer Reeder – and if that doesn’t get you interested, I don’t know what will….

Short films festivals & events

Cineuropa Short is a new website exclusively dedicated to European short films. With news, interview, festival reports, videos and events, Cineuropa Short aims at promoting the European Short film industry and its creators throughout the world.